Do you have a higher opinion of Evangelical Christianity or Islam?

[ingemann]

If you're asking if I have a higher opinion of the largely white conservative/fundamentalist Protestants who are disproportionately American vs. Muslims in general, well I know which ones are far more powerful, numerous, and malignant in my country.

I'll grant that Salafism and Khomeneism are Bad. Though it should be noted that both of those are modern developments (in the latter case very much so, obviously) and simplistic, politicized interpretations of an utterly massive Abrahamic religion with well over a millennium of history, explicitly calling for a "return" to the imagined early golden period of the religion. The fundamentals, if you will.

Both of those are far less awful than historical Islam, ISIS may seem horrible but they’re far more in line with the historical practice of Islam than the former two. I think Evangelical Christianity represent corrupted Christian values, but they’re still better than generic Islam.

[ingemann]

And maybe evangelicalism and Islam aren’t that different anyway

I have observed many times that Sunni Islam, at least the way it exists in the West, resembles from an organizational standpoint nothing more than non-denominational Protestantism.

Are there also a fair number of Sunni imams, scholars, and other authority figures of dubious credibility but nevertheless, a significant following?

While on the subject of this comparison, the American mainstream media seemed to have discovered so-called cultural Christianity—specifically in the form of white evangelical Protestants, the most interesting religious community to media and political pollsters—during the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. Members of this forum have long had spirited conversations with BRTD re: “cultural” religion in general, and cultural Catholicism in particular—perhaps BRTD’s least favorite subject. Regardless, this is not a novel subject for us.

My impression is that it’s even harder to define Islam (and by implication, Muslims) narrowly as a religion in the individualistic/personal way that most Americans, maybe Protestants and secular Americans in particular, conceptualize religion; but I’m not certain of this.

That's my impression as well, and I've noticed that it has a tendency to stymy serious conversations about prejudice against Muslims, but also about, conversely, the problems that Islam and Islamic societies do tend to have. What's being discussed is never "just" the on-paper tenets of Islam-the-religion, something I think all sides of this or that argument about it would do well to recognize more clearly before the argument begins.

Islamic theology is vastly worse than Muslim societies, also the vast majority of Muslims are also far better people than Muhammed was.

[ingemann]

If you're asking if I have a higher opinion of the largely white conservative/fundamentalist Protestants who are disproportionately American vs. Muslims in general, well I know which ones are far more powerful, numerous, and malignant in my country.

I'll grant that Salafism and Khomeneism are Bad. Though it should be noted that both of those are modern developments (in the latter case very much so, obviously) and simplistic, politicized interpretations of an utterly massive Abrahamic religion with well over a millennium of history, explicitly calling for a "return" to the imagined early golden period of the religion. The fundamentals, if you will.

Both of those are far less awful than historical Islam, ISIS may seem horrible but they’re far more in line with the historical practice of Islam than the former two. I think Evangelical Christianity represent corrupted Christian values, but they’re still better than generic Islam.

historical Islam >>> Historical Christianity.

You know about Islamic Gold Age, and European Medieval Ages.

Who do you think approved of the scientific method, yes. The biggest scientists of that time were Arabs. The best explorers of the time were also Arabs like Ibn Al Battuta.

Many Middle East Empires were tolerant like Ottomans or the Moors. Who were intolerant: yes the ones calling for crusades, and the backwards civilizations in Europe. Even norsemen were superior to Europeans.

The Muslim conquered the richest parts of the Roman Empire and turned it into the Middle East, the Christians lived in the post-apocalyptic ruins of poorest part of the Roman Empire and turned it into Europe.

The “enlightened” Caliphate suffered from rampant peasant revolts, they continued attacked and raided their neighbors for slaves and tribute, their economies depended on taxing second class citizens or raiding, they were center of the global slave trade and while slavery was falling in importance in the late Roman Empire, they revived it and pushed it to height never seen before or even after. Civil Wars over succession or religious difference were common.

[ingemann]

If the US overnight became a right wing evangelical theocracy, gays absolutely would be executed (eventually, as that's where unchecked dehumanisation always leads) but in true American fashion by something needlessly complex like a Rube Goldberg death machine rather than a simple hanging.

I know I'm quoting my own post here, but American Evangelicalism (and it's export) is restrained because of the political structures of the US and most Western nations.

If it was unrestrained... you'd see a very different beast. Islam had been shaped more by politics and trade these past few decades more than any cultural or scriptural basis. The idea that at it's core it's more 'prone' to a fundamentalist default than Christianity is flawed.

But they point is that Evangelical Christianity do exist in the context of being a minority religion in mostly secular states with strong rule of law. If we compared Objectivism with Nazism people could come with the claim, that Objectivism is worse because if it gained power it would kill more people than Nazism, but in the end that’s just a claim and Nazism have a massive body count in the real world and not just in some theoretical world. .